[pedantic jackhole]
You mean hyphen, not dash. Dashes are used to set off parenthetical statements with more force than a pair of commas but with less force than parentheses; hyphens join words.
And I find hyphens quite useful, both for neologisms and for avoiding ambiguity.
[/pedantic jackhole]
I am pretty sure that Yoda does not use contractions.
I don’t find the use of apostrophes to be more useful than the misuse is confusing. I think we’d get used to the retirement of all apostrophes quite readily.
(How many more ways can I use “use” in this post? Use use use!)
Works on contingency? No, money down!
Hw bt gttng rd f vwls? Wh nds thm? Mst ppl cn rd sntncs jst fn wth th vwls rmvd.
Do people actually think slippery slope arguments are effective?
It was the OP who said he got carpal tunnel syndrome from all those extra characters. Not so much a “slippery slope” suggestion as a limb-saving one.
I voted No, assuming you actually meant contractions. That being said, it would be Ok with me if we did away with contractions and just used the whole words.
The OP’s logic is foolish. However, getting rid of apostrophes and getting rid of vowels are hardly the same type of change. All of the people who are mocked for not using apostrophes correctly demonstrate every day that apostrophes are essentially optional already.
I started developing carpal tunnel programming COBOL 9 to 11 hours a day. Two programmers in our shop had surgery for it. Several others like me needed wrist braces until the inflammation cleared up. I changed jobs so that I wouldn’t be forced to type for such extended periods. Years later I still have to be careful not to over do my typing or my hands begin to act up.
It has made me much more aware of unneeded key strokes. They do add up over the course of a day.
It’s even worse for the people typing on phones with the software simulated keys. Even updating my phone’s address is a PITA because of those tiny keys. I can’t imagine trying to post to SDMB with those things.
But what about a contractenated hyphunction?
Don’t make me throw this pie at you.
And you’re saying that’s all on these ’ ?
I believe you mean “. . .that’s all these “'”'s fault?”
No, we don’t use the apostrophe in COBOL.
I was only suggesting the apostrophe was a character that could easily be retired. Others up thread mentioned how awkwardly it’s placed on a computer keyboard. It’s a nuisance reaching for it with the pinky. I often hit the return key by mistake.
Actually, it’s the only commonly used character that I think could be semi retired. The comma is essential for understanding complex sentence structure. No one should get confused by shouldnt or couldnt. It might be confusing in sloppy cursive handwriting, but the meaning of couldnt is crystal clear in a computer font.
Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to see how many others felt the same way. Apparently I’m solidly in the minority on this one. 
I suspect the apostrophe will reign supreme for quite sometime to come.
Neither does Lieutenant Commander Data.
Beats me, as my argument wasn’t a slippery slope one. There are a lot of aspects of written language that could be deemed unnecessary, and it just seems kind of arbitrary to choose to focus on the apostrophe. It’s something that I find is actually useful at conveying meaning in text, though I’m sure I could adjust to its absence.
Besides, as others have pointed out, there’s not much point in trying to force a change like this, or in fighting to keep it from happening. Que Será, Será.
When you type on a thing that’s a mobile device it puts the apostrophes in for you. At least that’s my experience, right now. As I’m typing this from my iPod Touch.
If we didnt have apostrophe’s, how would idiot’s write plural’s?
I knew a programmer who wrote his Fortran code like that because Fortran didn’t need spaces between words. I wanted to throttle him.